Good Looks On Trial: The Amanda Knox Case

Kiri Blakeley
, ContributorI write about women being buzzed about & what women are buzzing about.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Amanda Knox

Amanda Knox, the 24-year-old American former college student convicted, along with her Italian boyfriend, of killing her roommate in Perugia, Italy, in an alleged drug-fueled orgy gone wrong, could be cleared of the crime on appeal as early as Monday.

Knox had been sentenced to 26 years in prison. I’m not going to get into the question of her guilt or innocence—there are people who have followed and analysed every single twist, turn, timeline, and smidgen of DNA, and I’m not one.

What I find interesting, though, is that "Foxy Knoxy," as she is called, is a pretty brunette with a pudgy face, blue eyes, and a slight resemblance to actress Emma Roberts (that’s who I’d cast anyway, but it was Hayden Panetierre who played her in the inevitable Lifetime movie) and her looks have been on trial almost as much as the evidence.

“Attractive people—women in particular—face several dilemmas when accused of a crime,” says former senior FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole, author of Dangerous Instincts: How Gut Feelings Betray Us: “The focus of the case quickly goes to the woman’s physical appearance, only to underscore the belief that really pretty women—for whatever reason—cannot also be criminals. Or, if a very attractive woman is in fact guilty, she must be evil.”

In court, Knox has been termed by the prosecution a “she-devil,” a “witch,” “diabolical,” a “femme-fatale." Alternatively, her own attorney called her an “angel face,” and compared her to the voluptuous Who Framed Roger Rabbit? cartoon character Jessica Rabbit.

"Jessica Rabbit looks like a man-eater, but she is a faithful and loving woman," said Giulia Bongiorno, Knox's attorney, adding a famous line from the movie, "[Amanda] is not bad, she's just drawn that way.”

Jessica Rabbit

Because of Knox's looks, says O’Toole, she would, especially in a little Italian town where violent crime is almost unheard of, be elevated to the level of having “magical and evil powers.”

Indeed, the prevailing theory is that Knox was involved in witchcraft and vampirism (this seemingly fueled because her murdered roommate had dressed up like a vampire the night before her death—never mind the fact that it was Halloween).

And let's not forget that Knox was, unfortunately for her court reputation, sexually active. Much has been made of the fact that her doomed roommate, Meredith Kercher, objected to Knox leaving a sex toy in view.